Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-28
WIVES BY THE SHIPLOAD.
A Forgotten Incident of Early
Canadian History.

a little "out OF the ordinary" is the
following extract from the Toronto
Globe:
1t is one of the almost forgotten cur
iosities of early Canadian history that
about the year 1868 France actually
undertook to supply its discharged sol
diers and other citizens who had set
tied in Canada with wives to order,
and on scale befitting its own mag
nificence. Ships were chartered and
q consignment of several hundreds OF
demoiselles was shipped from the
mother land for the choice and delec-
tation of the sturdy adventurers who,
having at length conquered a peace
from the fierce Iroquis, were now in a
position to cultivate their own assigned
acres and sit down by their own peace
full firesides. Imagination falters in
the attempt to depict the curiosity and
anxiety with which the arrival of the
vessel bearing the precious freight
would be awaited by the expect
ant and eager bachelors, if indeed
they were permitted to know before
hand of the beneficent designs OF the
Government, or the peculiar shape
the royal bounty was about to assume.
What thrill must have flashed along
the banks of the st. Lawrence when
the advertisement was actually pub
lished that large number of candi-
dates for the matrimonial market had
reached the Canadian shores, and that
"such as had means of supporting
wife should have their choice" We
can fancy the growing excitement as
the avant courier, charged with the
weighty news, went from village to |
village and from house to house to |
spread the novel announcement. We
can see in our minds eye the living
streams of pilgrims, taking their rise
in the remote huts of the dense forests |
and pouring forth in ever-swelling vol
ume toward the place of rendezvous,
as the ancestors of the inhabitants
fastened forward, eager to try their
fortunes, or exulting by anticipation in
the enjoyment of the proffered boon.
So far as appears, the hundreds OF
ladies must have stood
forth with unveiled faces and with
that outward semblance of calm
which only women can put on with
marvellous success in the most trying
open to the inspection
Of the crowding and excited suitors.
What pen can do Justice to the con-
tending emotions that must have rent
their bOsoms as each waited minute
after minute, or hour after hour, for
her turn to come; or, perhaps, as she
found herself forced to decide, in very
brief order, between the conflicting
claims of half a dozen eager competi-
tors, neither of whom she had ever
seen before, and in regard to whose
previous history and present character
she was wholly in the dark, save so
far as her keen woman's instincts |
might give her light.
The scene must certainly have been |
a memorable one to those who wit |
messed it. The collection, we are told
by the old chronicler, Consisted OF |
tall, short, fair, brown, fat and lean."
Each of these had had, no doubt, her
own peculiar trials, disappointments
and sorrows, for it is hardly conceiva-
BILE that jolly young damsels with
high expectations and an abundance
of eligible offers in their own land
would have volunteered to take the
chances of such foreign adventure,
even under the auspices OF the French
government or its royal head. Even
SO. conjecture tries in vain to conceive
of the arguments and influences the
agents of the government must have
brought to bear in order to induce
these young women, to the number of
several hundreds, to bid farewell for
ever to the land of their birth and all
old friends and associations, and go
forth and take the dark chances of
happiness as wives of unknown men,
and disbanded soldiers at that. Be
that as it may, there they were.
The matches were all arranged
within the short space of less than
fifteen days from the publication of
the advertisements. The marriage
ceremony was in each case duly per-
formed, and then the wedding gifts
were in order. The Governor-General
himself undertook the benefcent task,
in the absence of circle of personal
friends and acquaintance, to be put
under contribution. His gifts were
admirably practical and useful. They
consisted of "oxen, cows, hogs,
fowls, salted beef and some money"
With these goodly stores the welded
couples set out on their homeward
journeys, and though regard for histor-
ical truth, or at least verisimilitude,
forbids us to declare of them by whole
sale that they were all happy ever
after" we may reasonably hope that
goodly proportion of them at least
were reasonably 50, especially since
we must believe that the personal and
social virtues of many an honest in
habitant OF the present day may have
come down in direct line of heredity
from pair of ancestors thus strangely
brought together and summarily
welded.